


A More Perfect Union

by Atorias_Trenchcoat (vulcan_slash_robot)



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alpha/Alpha Relationship, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Regency, Fluff, M/M, Mpreg, Multi, Non-Chronological, Omega/Omega Relationship, Pack Dynamics, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Presumed Dead, Rating will change, Tags to be added, and eventual smut, bless them, everybody's bad at communication, pov switching, rife with anachronisms, traces of racism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:41:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24834010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vulcan_slash_robot/pseuds/Atorias_Trenchcoat
Summary: In days long past, it was common for any combination of alphas, betas, omegas and females to form tight social groups known as Packs. Such groups formed complex networks of relationships within themselves, and produced children that were cared for communally, raised under the protection and guidance of all members.In these polite, modern times, such arrangements still exist, but the polite, modern term is Joined Household, not Pack. They are not common among the upper classes, where lineage must be easily traceable and one can afford to hire more hands to raise children and keep house. There's no need for...all that.(Tony and Steve are both omegas and they Join their Houses. It's a teensy bit scandalous. That's it, that's the fic. )
Relationships: (minor) Bucky Barnes/Tony Stark, (minor) Steve Rogers/Sam Wilson, (very minor) Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, (very minor) Tony Stark/Sam Wilson, James "Bucky" Barnes/Sam Wilson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 21
Kudos: 88
Collections: Tony-involved Omegaverse Fics





	1. Begin at the End

**Author's Note:**

> CHRONOLOGY: If I wrote this story out in order and included every event, it would be 200k and I would never finish it. I haven't got the spoons, my duckies, I just haven't. Instead I intend to write whatever bit strikes my fancy whenever it should happen to do so and post it as a new chapter, with notes around the edges to help you keep track of what's happening. PLEASE NOTE that the work will be marked complete, once AO3 will let me without taking away my chapter titles, but you should probably subscribe if the idea appeals to you, because more could come out whenever.
> 
> WORLD BUILDING: Omega gender roles are somewhat between male and female, in this one. They use masculine pronouns but a married omega is a "wife" and an omega with children is a "mother" and their clothing options are broad. Steve wears a lot of dresses. He looks lovely. Tony does not. He also looks lovely. It's all great fun.
> 
> We begin with an epilogue, used as a prologue, to shed context on the disconnected scenes to follow. Enjoy <3

A bell chimes, softly, its faint tinkling echo muffled and baffled by the rows of tall shelves but still managing to announce that the door has been opened. Perhaps they need a bigger bell. They couldn’t make do with any shorter shelves, certainly, the store is hardly large enough as it is. The shop is new, or at least newly bought, and such trifling matters as the size of the bell over the door still occupy the greater portion of Jim’s thoughts in the calm parts of the day.

“With you in a moment!” he calls, assuming rather boldly that someone has actually come in, rather than peer through the opened door at his wares and carefully retreat, which has been the far more common reaction.

“No trouble!” a male voice answers, lost in the sea of shelves. “I shall amuse myself all right, no need to rush.”

Jim smiles and hurriedly finishes his notations on the latest shipment. Those who do venture into his place of business on a whim are generally the idle rich, easily fascinated and curious, and possibly about to become passionate hobbyists. His more reliable customers are the tradesmen of the area, but they never order the really  _ interesting  _ stuff. 

He sets the ledgers aside and makes his way toward the front of the store, expecting to find a bright-eyed young alpha holding a filigree-patterned brass fitting upside-down and delightedly puzzling over what it could possibly be for. 

Instead, he rounds the end of a row, following the sound of small metal things clanking together as they are riffled through with abandon, and finds himself face-to-heel with a pair of fine leather boots.

_ Omega  _ boots.

The boots are clinging by their toes to a shelf over five feet above the floor, making it possible for their wearer to explore the contents of a shelf nearly at the ceiling. Jim’s view of the man is almost entirely blocked by a long, crimson frock coat, billowing skirt-like from the stranger’s hips in the fashion lately popular among well-to-do omegas. Not a true skirt, thank Heaven, or Jim’s automatic upward glance would have returned a much more shocking sight.

The presence of trousers, however, does not excuse the act of regarding a strange omega from such an angle and Jim nearly trips over himself in his haste to retreat. He doesn’t quite know what to do with his eyes, for on the one hand it would be a terrible crime to look up again now that he knows what he would see, but what if the omega should  _ fall? _

“I, ah, you, that,” Jim stammers, backpedaling until he is mercifully out of range of the stranger’s delicate, floral scent and has reached an angle where he can regard this madman from the side and not...under. “Where--do you--chaperone?” he manages, almost coherently.

“Pshaw,” the man scoffs. He’s visible mainly as a silhouette, now, backlit by the windows at the front of the store. “I’m a wife and mother of many years and many little gremlins, I require no omnipresent guardian to defend me from the keepers of shops.”

Jim watches, horrified, as the figure pulls away from the shelves and turns to place a hand and a foot on the corresponding shelves on the _ opposite side _ of the narrow aisle in which they stand. The man swings himself across to his new perch as if he’s done nothing more remarkable than step into a waiting carriage. Jim feels faint.

“What I  _ do  _ require is a pair of three-inch outside calipers, steel, and, for an unrelated reason, four gaslight globes in cut glass for interior sconces. Dining room, if it makes any difference.”

“That’s...quite specific.”

The man sighs and rests his forehead against the bin he’d been investigating. “I have got such a  _ lot  _ of precious little gremlins.”

Jim finds himself suppressing a smile, in spite of the continuing urge to string a net along the bottom of the aisle, just in case. “I can see how that might be relevant to the need for new glass goods, but the calipers?”

“There was an incident. Quite a deep duck pond was involved, although nobody will tell me just what that has to do with anything and which little angels perpetrated the deed. But!” The man suddenly departs his perch with a little hop and lands safely, if loudly, on his feet. He’s about half a head shorter than Jim, now that he stands on the floor. “The whole affair  _ has  _ given me the excuse I’ve been waiting for to investigate our new hardware supply, and I must say it’s a great relief to have such an establishment so near to home at last. You must be Mr. Rhodes?”

Tension eases from Jim’s shoulders; the dread of anticipation fading now that the man has neither fallen to his demise nor asked him  _ is Mr Rhodes in, _ nor indeed the less-enjoyable but equally common phrasing, _ is your master present? _ “James Rhodes,” he answers, with a smile and a nod. “At your service.”

The man clicks his tongue, though he looks amused. “Alas, I’ve got a husband called James, I shall have to call you something else.”

“It’s Jim, to my friends.” The implication that the man is already intending a first-name basis startles him into sharing the familiarity, to say nothing of his odd phrasing on the subject of his husband.  _ I’ve got a husband called James, _ not _ my husband’s name is James? _ Surely, that can’t be what it sounds like. Not for an omega so finely attired as this.

“Wonderful! You must call me Tony,” the man replies, grinning broadly. He claps his hands together. “Now, you must show me everything, it’s calipers and globes today but that project will be finished in no time and I need to see what you’ve got before I finish planning what sort of trouble I’m to invent next.”

The store is not large, but it is stacked to the rafters and Tony asks so many precise, educated questions that the exploration stretches on and on. Jim catches his wife’s eye over Tony’s shoulder, at one point, and they share a baffled glance before she moves on to the next row, stocking the shelves with their new shipment. When the bell sounds again, Jim ignores it, trusting her to greet the new arrival, if there is one. 

An ear-piercing shriek of “PEPPER!” splits the air, from the direction of the door.

Tony jumps, nearly as high as Jim does, and exclaims: “Pep--WHAT? Where?!” He tosses the spool of wire he’d been holding straight up in the air and flees, vanishing in a swirl of red velvet toward the voices now chattering excitedly near the entrance. Jim catches the wire and stumbles after him just in time to see the man fairly pounce, catching Ginny from behind in an embrace about the shoulders and merrily shouting “Pepper  _ Potts, _ you rascal, how very dare you!”

There’s another omega now, slight and fair and dressed in a simple, flattering gown. Even from this distance, the blue of the fabric brings out the blue in his eyes. This one is watching Tony with exasperation, though his cheeks are still flushed with the excitement that had led him to cry out, moments ago. 

“What--” Ginny gasps, and Jim watches his wife wriggle free enough to turn around and face Tony. She peers at him. “...Tony? Tony Edwards? It can’t be!”

“You’re not going to faint, are you?” Tony asks, deadly serious.

“No?”

“Steve fainted,” Tony informs her, defensively, gesturing at the other omega.

“Must you tell that to everyone?” the other, Steve, sighs, hiding his face behind a hand. “And I--Pepper, where did  _ you  _ think Tony went, when he left school?”

“Home, of course,” she answers. “He was so ill, and his benefactors had decided that they could provide better care at their own estate. That was what you said, when they came to collect you,” she says the last to Tony, who grins brightly.

“Steve thought I’d died,” he says, a trifle too gleefully. Ginny turns back around to Steve, aghast, and Steve throws his hands in the air. 

“I didn’t see him leave!” he defends, “I went out and when I came back he was gone, without a trace, and everyone was so downcast, and, six years later he just  _ turns up _ without a  _ word  _ of warning--you’d faint too if a ghost took your hand!”

“Oh, precious,” Tony says, gently, and steps around Ginny to put his arms around the smaller omega, instead. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make fun.” Steve looks as if he’d like to be angry, but he leans back against Tony’s chest. It appears to be a rather automatic reaction. 

“Well!” Ginny crosses her arms. “If you  _ had  _ died, that would certainly have explained the lack of response to my letters.”

“You wrote?” A fragile, vulnerable sort of shock overtakes Tony’s expression. He shakes his head, sadly. “I never got any letters. Mother must have burned them.”

“Mother?! What mother? You never had a mother!” Ginny protests, which sounds absurd to Jim until she adds, “You slept in the orphans’ dormitory, with me and Steve! Every night!”

“Yes, I did,” Tony says, subdued. “I lived in that hall for four years, under a false name, with no ties to my home or family, as penance for the terrible sin of having been revealed an omega. Father never forgave me. And then I got so ill that I nearly died, and then Mother was horrified in turn that I’d made such close friends with the other  _ lowly  _ orphans, and cut me off completely from the lot of you.” He rolls his eyes heavenward. “I think perhaps my parents should not have been allowed to reproduce.”

“Ah,” Ginny ventured, uncertain in the face of such a revelation. “So...not Edwards, then?”

Tony smiles, gratitude in his eyes for the easy acceptance. “It’s Barnes, now, but at the time it was really Stark.”

“You’re marri-- _ Stark?” _ Ginny stops herself short. “Wasn’t there, ah,” she flicks a glance at Jim, the first sign in many minutes that any of the three of them still know he’s here, “Wasn’t there a whole wing at that school, named after a Stark?”

“The Maria Stark--” Tony begins, then glances at Jim as well. “That is, ah, yes. My mother. That Maria Stark, yes.”

“Oh, my,” Ginny wobbles, her knees evidently going weak, and Jim finally dares to approach so that he can offer her a steadying hand.

“Goodness, what are we doing,” Tony says briskly, “Standing about and filling this poor gentleman’s shop with gossip, I do apologize--”

“Oh, Tony!” Ginny exclaims, latching onto the hand that Jim had offered and dragging him forward, “I think you’ve met my husband, Jim Rhodes?”

Both omegas turn toward Jim at once, a delighted gleam in their eyes. Jim freezes in place. Tony clutches at his own chest, over his heart. “You’ve married a man who owns a hardware store. I knew you were a woman after my own heart.”

Ginny laughs. “Jim, this is Steve Rogers, and Tony Ed--I mean Star--no, what is it now?”

“Barnes,” Steve supplies. “And I’m a Wilson now, actually.”

Tony huffs. “Only on paper.” Jim must look puzzled, because Tony grins at him, gone suddenly smug. “We’ve joined our houses.”

Well, that answers that. Tony’s comment about his husband earlier had been exactly what it sounded like, after all, and the fact that he’s never stepped an inch back from where he’d gone to comfort Steve now makes more sense. Steve flushes bright pink to the roots of his hair at Tony’s brazen announcement of their arrangement, but he looks pleased as well. Ginny gasps, quite loudly. 

“I knew it!” she cries. “Oh, I knew it, I always knew you would--have you got any children?”

“Five,” Steve states proudly, though he’s still blushing and grinning at the shelf beside him.

“What are their ages?” Ginny presses. Jim knows she’s already mentally planning a playdate with the little one she’s been gamely trying to bring into the world for the last year. 

“Nearly four,” Tony answers, beaming.

“Four...what? The eldest, you mean?”

“No, all of them. All born at once.”

“Tony!” Ginny gasps, shocked. “You didn’t carry  _ quintuplets?” _

“Heaven forbid!” Tony barks out on a laugh. Steve blanches and puts his hands over his own stomach, at the mere thought. “I had triplets, and Steve twins. We delivered on the same day.”

Steve manages to blush even more darkly than before, and Jim sympathizes. Triplets. And twins. On the same day, from a Joined House. The image that paints is...rather personal, if not outright indecent. 

Mercifully, perhaps, the front door opens once more, sounding its bell quite clearly from this distance, and a large alpha leans in. 

“Excuse me, is my wife in here?” the newcomer asks, a bit sardonically, directing his gaze at the back of Tony’s head. 

“James!” Tony whips around to seize a handful of the man’s shirt and drags him into the shop. “Come, come here, come in here and meet Pepper! Where are my babies? Babies, come here and meet your Mama’s friends!”

The alpha permits himself to be pulled forward, towing a line of little ones behind him by their joined hands. Three very small boys shuffle their way in, looking shyly between their parents and the strangers. One with dark curls and wide, dark eyes that match Tony’s, one with lighter hair and Steve’s delicate bones, and a third with much darker skin and closer, darker curls than his brothers. Jim’s breath catches in his chest.

Just outside, another voice can be heard approaching. A man, singing a simple tune in short snatches. In the pauses, as he draws nearer, children’s voices answer him. The little family has gone quiet, listening, and the alpha stands holding the door open and watching through it. 

“Where’s your mama?” the man’s voice calls, as he draws near enough to be heard properly.

_ “Working in the work-shop!” _ answer two tiny voices, strident with joy.

“Where’s your mama?”

_ “Working in the work-shop!” _

“What’s he doing?”

_ “Mama’s in-ven-ting!” _

“But Mama missed dinner!”

_ “He doesn’t know what time it is!” _ the children squeal. The man has stopped just outside the door, visible as a shadow against the glass but with his image warped by the complex, leaded pane.

“Mama needs his babies, you better go and get him!” 

Tony has knelt down, expectantly, as if this is some sort of ritual. On cue, two tiny girls race through the door and pelt into him at the greatest speed their short legs can manage. Their chatter is almost unintelligible with excitement, but seems centered on the theme that Tony was meant to return to the family hours ago--years, possibly, according to the girls--and they’ve been forced to come and collect him. Tony catches them both in his arms and hugs them tightly, and nods along seriously as they explain the situation. 

“Yes, you’re right, I got lost in the machines, I always do. It was good of you to rescue me,” he kisses them each on the cheek. One of the girls looks just like him, but miniature and feminine. The other is dark, with fluffy, tightly-curly hair. 

The man outside finally steps into the doorway, and the last puzzle piece falls into place. Tony smiles up at him, and the man smiles back. 

“You’re very good helpers to your Papa Sam,” Tony adds, squeezing his girls once more before standing up. “Pepper, Jim, I’d like you to meet my husband, James Barnes,” he touches the arm of the large alpha who’d come in with the boys, “Steve’s husband, Sam Wilson,” the man in the doorway tips his hat. “And this is Harley, Peter, Miles, Morgan, and Riri.”

There’s a shy chorus of _ hullo _ from very near the floor. Riri stares very intently at Jim during these introductions, then tugs at the hem of Tony’s coat. He leans down and she very much fails to whisper: “He looks like Papa Sam!”

Tony presses his lips together against an embarrassed laugh, shutting his eyes for a second before answering. “Well, I suppose so, a bit,” he allows, which is a rather generous estimation, but Jim can only assume that in this part of the country it’s rare for her to meet anyone who resembles her father, at all, apart from herself and her brother. Jim shares a glance with Sam, who gives a slight, apologetic hitch of his shoulders and a wry, knowing smile. 

James manages to break the tension by inquiring whether Ginny is the same “Pepper” that he’s heard mentioned in so many tales of Steve and Tony’s school days, and Ginny realizes in turn that she knows of James from stories of Steve’s earlier childhood, under the nickname “Bucky.” Jim begins to fear how these people will come to address him, when they know him better.

The chatting doesn’t get much further before Sam interrupts, insisting that they really are going to miss supper if they don’t get back to the house soon. There’s a round of farewells; the alphas shuffle out first, herding the children, Steve shakes Jim’s hand and clutches Ginny tightly in a brief but glad embrace. Tony lingers, arranging for delivery of his earlier selections and then clinging just as tightly to Ginny, for a bit longer than Steve had done. 

“You  _ must  _ come up to the house, it is not at all optional,” he admonishes, still clinging to her elbows. “We shall have tea. I absolutely insist upon it. Bring Jim, I want to show him all my projects. I’ve got an arc lamp that stays lit for minutes at a time, he’ll love it.” Tony’s gaze goes wistful, and he snatches her to his breast one more time. “I’m so glad you’ve come here. I’m so--you--” he trails off and clears his throat, glancing, somewhat abashed, at Jim. “If you’re going to produce some little friends for my babies, you’d best get to it,” he admonishes in a sharp change of subject, covering whatever he’d been about to say. “Before mine get too much older.”

“Of course,” she laughs. “They’re such little dears. My children will be lucky to know them.” She does not say,  _ I am glad to learn that there are friends here, for our children, who will look like them, _ she does not say,  _ I am glad that there are friends here, for us, who have children that look like ours will. _ She does say, “Miles and Riri are the twins, then?”

“Oh, not at all!” Tony denies, brightly. “Riri is one of mine. I had Harley and the girls, Miles and Peter are Steve’s twins.”

Steve, who had just leaned back in through the doorway, presumably to remind Tony that everyone is waiting for him, flushes bright crimson once more and ducks right back out. Jim rather wishes he could do the same. How the members of a Joined Household choose to go about producing their collective children is very much their own affair, but generally a polite fiction is maintained in public, through omission. 

“Oh,” is all Ginny can say, which is more than Jim could possibly have managed. 

Tony laughs, very faintly, finally looking just a touch self-conscious. “I know it would be more polite to pretend otherwise,” he admits. “To permit you to think that we’ve each gotten our children only from our own husbands, but…” he looks back up, defiantly, eyes shining. “I will not deny my child. I will not let her grow up thinking that she’s somehow at fault, just for existing. She’s mine, and I love her.”

Jim can only nod, solemn, and Tony nods back.

“Tea,” Tony repeats. “Next Thursday. I shall see you then.”

He kisses Ginny’s cheek, squeezes her hands, and sweeps out of their door to join his family. 


	2. The Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“You’re not going to faint, are you?” Tony asks, deadly serious.  
>  “No?”  
> “Steve fainted,” Tony informs her, defensively.  
> _
> 
> Steve did faint. This is why.

The mirror over the vanity is just a little bit cloudy. The glass is old, and so is the silver, and age has given its reflections a strange, ethereal quality. Within the glass is always shown a darker, less solid world, shadowed at the edges and faintly spiderwebbed with cracks.

Yet, it is bright enough. Bright enough for Steve to straighten his bodice in, bright enough to ensure that his mother’s cameo sits nicely above his neckline, not lost in the lace, and does not look too odd against the color. If his own eyes, looking back at him, seem dim and shadowed this morning, certainly that must be the fault of the mirror. He can certainly believe so.

A gentle hand touches his bare shoulder, and a rueful smile twists the lips of Steve’s reflection. 

Lying to himself would be easier, if he hadn’t married such a kind man.

“Time to go, soon,” Sam reminds him, his voice soft. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine,” Steve assures. But, because Sam deserves the truth, he adds, “I dreamt of him. That’s all.”

Sam nods, not needing to ask more. He knows Steve, knows his faces, his moods, his scent. It is a special kind of melancholy, though not a rare one, that has overtaken him on this morning; there can only be two reasons for it, and both come in dreams.

When Steve dreams of _ her, _ it is an older pain that haunts him. One longer buried, rusted through and blunted with time, but never gone. The loss of his mother is one he will always feel, rooted in the hollows of his bones, no matter how many years have passed without her.

Dreams of  _ him _ ...are worse, in their way. The pain is fresher. Steve was not quite so young, when this one was taken from him. His dearest companion, closest confidant. The boy with the clever smile and the wide, shining eyes.

Steve’s whole life had been taken away from him, when he presented. Not quite _ away, _ not the way his mother had been taken, but set aside. Plucked from his hands and put on a shelf that he is still trying to reach, now. Where there had been a place at Brookland Hall for the young, orphan child of a beloved family retainer, now passed, there could be no such place for a growing omega with no status or stature, not when the young master had presented alpha just months before. Not when the two boys had been accustomed to spend every day together, often forsaking all other company. Steve had never been disliked or mistreated in his childhood home, he’d been happy there but for the loss of his own family--but he could not be allowed there any longer.

It was not for this loss that he dreamed. It stung him, sometimes, but more often in waking. He’d had no wish to marry the future master of his house, and he probably could go home, now, safely rendered ineligible by the presence of Sam. 

In those days, though, he had raged, and wept, and raged again, morning to night, banished miles and miles away to a little school, all filled with young omegas and girls, kept safely separate from any menfolk. To be educated, they said, but sometimes other students were allowed to go home at holidays, and no carriages ever came for Steve. 

No carriages came for Tony, either.

Tony, who had dried Steve’s tears and calmed his rage. Who had washed the blood from Steve’s hands and pinafore and bloodied his own knuckles on the side of the building, racing to tell Ms Carter in very fast words that it was he who had blacked Justin’s eye, not Steve, not Steve who was so dangerously close to expulsion that another fight would do him in; because Justin knows that, Ms Carter, he’s only trying to get Steve sent home, it was me, punish me, Steve was in the woods all this afternoon, he fell in the stream, see? He couldn’t have done it. 

Tony, who had made it all right. Tony, who had made that school into a home of its own, a place to belong. Who smuggled extra paper from their art lessons and hid it under Steve’s mattress for him to find, who smiled when Steve was happy and held him when he was sad and suffered when he was in pain. Whose scent was like candied roses.

Carriages did not come for Tony, except for the one.

Just the one.

Steve had not been there, when it arrived. He had been in the woods--truly, that time--permitted to explore the lands near their school with the other healthy children, so long as he didn’t stray too near to them. All the teachers knew that Steve’s fragile constitution would never allow him to survive the fever that so many of the other children had been stricken with, that spring. He was kept carefully separate. Tony was strong. Tony was healthy. Tony was not kept separately, not until it was too late. Steve had not seen him but through the panes of the window in Tony’s private hospital room for weeks. He was bringing an apron-load of flowers and mushrooms and other interesting, portable bits of forest to arrange on the outside sill of that window, when he saw it.

A large, stately carriage, finely carved in dark wood, pulled by dark horses, with dark, heavy curtains across its windows. 

In life, he had not seen them put Tony into it. In life, he had run the last quarter mile back to school, dropping his treasures, leaving a trail of bruised and broken flowers in his wake. In life, he had found only an empty room in the hospital ward, an empty bed in the dormitory. Not a trace of Tony had been left. 

In his dreams, he watches. He is helpless, frozen, he can do nothing. Men with no faces lift Tony from his bed and set him in the coffin. Tony’s eyes are blank, but Steve can still hear him breathing. That terrible, thin, wheezing breathing, so very alike to the few precious, painful memories Steve has of his mother. He’s still breathing, and Steve wants to tell them, has to tell them, tries to tell them. He’s screaming it but he makes no sound. They lay Tony down in a thin wooden box and cover him with the lid. He’s still breathing. The nails bite into the wood, one by one, and between each heavy blow of the hammer is a tiny, gasping breath, no quieter for having been shut up in that terrible box. 

They nail it shut, they carry him away. They place the box in their awful, black carriage, and he shouts at them that Tony isn’t dead, he can’t die, they can’t have him, he isn’t dead! Steve beats his fists against the box, the men, the carriage. He tries to drag the box back out but it’s so heavy, the box is so heavy and Steve is so small. Tony is still breathing. They drive away, leaving the scent of candied roses in the air. 

Steve always wakes, then, heartbroken all over again.

Tony is not breathing, anymore. Tony is dead. Tony wasted away and died, just like Steve’s mother, and they took him away and buried him.

Tony is dead, and Steve didn’t get to say goodbye.

Sam knows.

He pulls Steve close, drawing him up from his chair and cradling him to his chest. He puts his arms around his wife, one hand gently resting on the back of his neck. Steve accepts the comfort, tucking his face into Sam’s shoulder and breathing him in. Sam’s scent is like warm, soft leather and a curl of crisp cinnamon bark. Safe. Home. Solid. 

When they part, some of the tension has left Steve’s shoulders. His chest doesn’t seem so tight, when he breathes. 

“Ready to go?” Sam asks him, and gently amends, “Are you feeling up to this?”

“Yes, to both.” Steve manages a smile. “I’m all right, I promise.”

Sam nods. “I think you’ll like them. The husband, at least. I’ve never met his wife, but James is a good man. You’ll like him.”

***

“It’s too  _ much,” _ Steve insists.

“I don’t see what’s so awful about it,” Sam replies, mildly, but his eyes are dancing in the shadow cast by the brim of his hat. 

The sun is hot and bright, Steve is glad of his parasol. They should not have long to wait, not if Sam’s new friends are at all polite, but the Wilson half of the gathering have arrived first and so here they stand, outside, along the side of the street, waiting. The air is fresh but the sun is hot, and Steve’s temper is beginning to rise along with the mercury, even though he knows that Sam is doing this on purpose.

“It’s wasteful, and it’s hideous,” Steve hisses. “That poor woman must have six yards of fabric on each arm and all it does is make her look like an Egytian pyramid that’s been tipped up on its point.”

“At least the color is lovely on her,” Sam says with confidence, somehow.

Steve draws in a breath and holds it, closing his eyes. The dress is in bright orange-and-blue plaid. His husband is trying to kill him. As is everyone currently in control of women’s clothing fashions. Omega styles aren’t falling victim to the same trends quite as quickly--apparently huge, puffed sleeves that make one’s shoulders appear to be four feet wide are “unpleasantly mannish” on omegas. If the trends do turn, Steve is just going to carry on making dresses for himself and his clients that  _ he  _ thinks are beautiful, and if he sells less of them for a few years, so be it. 

“Wilson!” a cheerful voice calls, from behind Steve. 

Steve’s heart lurches sideways, its strings roughly pulled by the similarity. It doesn’t sound exactly like him, of course, they’d been so young the last time they had spoken properly; he probably doesn’t sound like that at all, and the strangers voice probably only catches on his memory because Steve had been so lost in the past this morning--

“Barnes!” Sam answers with a wave and a broad grin.

Steve could swear that his heart stutters to a stop. He doesn’t think, doesn’t pause, doesn’t process.  _ Barnes. _ He turns on his heel and stares ten years straight back in time.

The man stops short in the street. His mouth silently forms the shapes of the word  _ Steve  _ before his countenance melts from shock to delight and he cries out “Stevie!” at the top of his mighty lungs.

He bounds across the cobbles with a whoop and in an instant his arms are around Steve, he’s whisked him off the ground, they’re spinning in circles and they’re both of them laughing so hard Steve thinks he might actually be sobbing. Oh, he smells the same, he smells just the same, like morning dew on grass and a fresh-cut slice of ginger 

_ “Bucky,” _ Steve gasps, his head still spinning even though his feet have returned to the ground. “Good heavens, Bucky!”

“Who on Earth is  _ Bucky?” _ Bucky asks, grinning like a fiend. He puts his thumbs behind the lapels of his jacket and puffs out his chest. “I’m a grown man now, everyone calls me James.”

Steve swats his shoulder. “You’re a Bucky, you’ve always been a Bucky, and Bucky you shall be forever.” He pauses to scan the man up and down. “You got so big!”

“You didn’t,” Bucky looks him over in turn. His eyes have much less distance to travel. “I’m glad. You’ve always been a gallon of trouble in a half-pint glass. It suits you. So does the dress, you look lovely.” Steve allows Bucky to twirl him in place and get a good look at him, shutting his eyes as if that will block out the giddy embarrassment that’s heating his cheeks. 

“Thank you, I made it myself.”

“You dog, of course you did,” Bucky laughs, proudly. “Is that your mother’s necklace?”

“Yes.” Their voices have both gone soft.

“Good.”

“Well, this is just fine.” Sam barrels into the conversation, sounding put out. “I spend all this time making us some new friends, set everyone up to meet and find out I’ve been talking to my wife’s childhood companion the entire time. That’s fine. I don’t feel foolish.”

“But--” Steve spins half around, still clinging to Bucky’s arm with one hand. “Surely you knew! Bucky  _ Barnes, _ I’ve told you hundreds of stories, I’ve told you everything about him!”

“Everything but that his name is  _ James,” _ Sam returns. Bucky laughs, strident and joyful. Sam heaves a sigh. “And the wife too, by the looks of it. Go on, hug and cry, can’t wait to find out what treasured past the two of you share.”

“Wife!” Steve exclaims spinning back to Bucky, “Wife, you’re married, oh, who did you--”

Steve actually hops in place, he’s so excited. He turns once more, right instead of left and not so far around, following Sam’s gaze to the figure he’s only just registered in the corner of his eye, until now. There’s an omega there, one favoring a more masculine style of dress, in a canary-yellow coat. He’s rescued Steve’s parasol from where Steve had thrown it, utterly forgotten, to the ground. He’s furled it up and he’s clutching it very tightly, in both hands. His eyes are wide with shock and wonder. His eyes--

His eyes--

Steve has forgotten to breathe. Steve has forgotten what air is for.

The omega steps forward, slowly, dreamlike, and offers Steve his hand, palm up. His mouth twitches toward a disbelieving smile. His eyes are wide, dark, bright and shining with tears. The world has gone white at the edges until all Steve can see is those eyes; there are voices swirling around them but Steve does not hear.

“Hi, Steve,” the ghost whispers.

Darkness rushes in and the world falls away with a swoop and a lurch. Steve’s aching lungs gasp as he falls, wresting back control for themselves.

His last conscious breath tastes of candied roses. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's feelings about dresses are borrowed largely from Nonasuch on tumblr, who has a whole tag called ["my abiding hatred of the 1830's"](https://nonasuch.tumblr.com/tagged/my-abiding-hatred-of-the-1830s) and it's grand. The dress is real. It looks like this. 


End file.
